various paradoxes in which they get involved. Of
these the following is a further example close at hand.

We are told that the fight over collectivization was
at its height in the year 1931. " Beginning with the
calamitous slaughter of livestock in many areas in
1929-1930, the recalcitrant peasants defeated, during
the years 1931 and 1932, all the efforts of the Soviet
Government to get the land adequately cultivated "
(p. 265); yet have we not learned on an earlier page
that during the same period the Communist Party
was enormously popular among the peasants ? We
have "been told that " it is significant of the character
and popularity of the Party that out of 59,797 -village
Soviets at the 1931 election, 35,155 chose a Party
member as elected president, who is always a member
of the local presidium, whilst 3,242 others elected a
Comsomol " (pp. 31-32). We are thus asked to
believe that, at a time when the peasants were killing
their cows in a desperate struggle against the Com-
munist policy, the popularity of the Party among
them was so great that it caused them to elect a
member of the Party as soviet chairman practically
whenever or wherever they could find one. One is
left to wonder whether perhaps the word " char-
acter," associated with the word " popularity " in
the above passage, might not indicate a reservation
which resolves the paradox : " character " might
perhaps stand for " terroristic character."

The short chapter entitled " In Whose Interest
Does the Government Act ? " (p. 449) suggests,
however, that the village soviet chairmen of 1931 are
only a special case of a more comprehensive parados:.
It seems that in Russia it is quite customary for the
agricultural population to elect representatives who

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